Droplets
by Calypso Diangelos
Summary: Slightly AU: The only thing more fragile than our dreams is the love in our hearts. The only thing more dangerous than love? Trust.


Droplets

By: Calypso

Summery: Slightly AU: The only thing more fragile than our dreams is the love in our hearts. The only thing more dangerous than love? Trust. 

Disclaimer: Pretender is not mine. Don't you dare sue me because if you do I'll have to pay you in dust bunnies. Not like I'm making any money from this after all.

AN: This is kind of AU, after you read it, you'll understand why. BTW – **HE** and **he** are **different people**. Capitalization matters.

~ ~ ~

His arms hold her gently, like the first rains of spring caressing the dry barren earth. His embrace is soft, like the clouds that cradled dawns first light.

She feels safe, like a newborn baby in its mother's arms. 

It was all so strangely comfortable, so strangely like love. 

Like the love she'd never found.

So strangely deceptive. 

It was always this way, always a deception - always a masquerade between them. A secret no one dared to tell. A game only they dared to play.

In a world full of danger, this was her safety. 

In a labyrinth of deceit, this was her only shelter in the whipping wind.

Like a leaf caught in an autumn storm, she had always floated. 

Floated like a shard of ice in a river of heartbreak and betrayal. 

A single droplet in a lake of tears. A single spirit in a world of lost souls.

"I love you." 

"I know"

It was the only thing she dared to say. Because it was all so fragile, because these moments were like fragile dreams that would evaporate with a word, with a single ray of reality. 

She knew she was drowning, drowning in a clever deception played by her own mind, by her own emotions. She knew this safety was false, this love. This was the furthest thing from immortal.

If life was truth, than this was death because these moments would never stand the test of light. Before a flame of light, these dreams would vanish like a shadow on the wall.

Like a distant memory. 

Others had brought them here – not by each other.

The paths they had chosen for themselves had long ago been destroyed by those who could not break their will.

This moment between the two of them was not about love.

Not about passion.

Not about lust.

The haven in which they floated contained no time, no possibilities, and no creations of the human mind. 

For these two there was only a moment of safety.

A brief oasis from an desert made barren by disillusioned dreams.

Suddenly, the cocoon around her was broken by the sound of a clock tick off the seconds.

__

That's all we've ever had. She thought. _Merely seconds._

"They'll wonder where I am." She murmured.

"Then let them wonder." He rested his head against her dark hair. Not yet ready to let the illusion shatter. Not yet ready to return to the grimness of the world they both existed in.

Unbidden, the bruises he knew were on her body entered into his mind. Creeping into his thoughts, gnawing at his conscious. Baiting him with the knowledge that he could have prevented them from being inflicted. 

"HE'll send sweepers." It wasn't a protest, but a reminder. There was no question of who _he _was. No question that he'd do what he said. He smothered her words by squeezing her hand. 

**__**

HE was the reason she had come to him battered and bruised. The reason he saw her as she was.

The years hadn't been kind – because HE hadn't been kind.

"Why do you stay?" The question had been asked before. But as always, she didn't reply.

Silently, the two disentangled from each other. 

In moments their safety was gone.

Both had been tossed back into that raging sea.

Once more she was falling into the endless Abyss and he closing his eyes to it.

"Goodbye Catharine."

"Bye Sydney." 

Without another glance, without another word. They departed each other.

Broken and somehow empty.

Love broke their hearts.

Trust mended their souls.

~Fini~

*Calypso peeks out from bomb shelter* Is it safe yet?

I told you it was AU. 

I wasn't going to write it but my muse kept nagging me. (Pretty demanding considering she disserted me for a full year.) Anyway, I hope you made it through that. If you feel scarred or shell shocked in any way shape or form, just substitute the names "Jarod" and "Parker" In place of Catherine and Sydney cuz if you read it the story kinda works either way doesn't it?

Anyway, lemme know what you think. If I am to be banished from pretender land forever, so be it. *tear rolls down cheek.*


End file.
